Just returned from 11 day BCV stay 06/16-06/27..UPDATED 04/09/10 -COMPLETE FINALLY !

Enjoying your report! Thanks! I'll make my DH wear his B-Day button when we go in September. I hope they make a big deal out of it like they did for you! When we made our ADRs I picked one meal to celebrate his birthday and let Disney know. When DH called back to change the ressie to something else and change where we celebrate his birthday, they said they were going to put a note about his birthday on EVERY meal. He said, "Please, don't." The CM said, "Sorry, I don't think I can honor your wishes about this."

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See, this is so frustrating! Just when I think I've decided where I went want to rent for my 40th bday trip in January-pre-purchase of DVC-then along comes a great trip report like yours and changes my mind!

Your trip report is wonderful to read and is making me so TIRED!!! It sounds like you are all going at a break-neck pace. I'm happy to hear that you have scheduled a "rest day". I love that you are posting photos -- I have never been to BCV and you are making me want to go ASAP!

We are going to AKV next March, so I have quite a while to wait for my next trip. The beauty of being a DVC member, you know that you will be back there again soon, so there is no pressure to see everything and you can really enjoy your "rest day".

Fellow DVC Colorodoan here!
Great trip report and pictures, thanks so much for sharing!
We too love BCV, and it is sure to be in our top 3 as long as we own DVC.
Looking at your pictures LITERALLY makes me SOOOOOOO homesick for WDW I don't know if I should read the entire report
Just makes my DVC payments easier to pay I guess, keep em' comin!

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Glad I can make it easier for you to write the check to DVC !! I was vey surprised to find out how many people in Colorado own dvc - I think I have met like 5 in just the short few months since I purchased. Maybe we could all get together and charter a plane out of DIA !!

Great update! We had dinner at 1900 Park Fare on our last visit - the character interaction was great (Cinderella), but thought the food was just a bit better than OK. Maybe I will give breakfast there a try - sounds like you loved it!

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Try breakfast there for sure. We also ate dinner here on my b-day. Breakfast was way better than the dinner.

Enjoying your report! Thanks! I'll make my DH wear his B-Day button when we go in September. I hope they make a big deal out of it like they did for you! When we made our ADRs I picked one meal to celebrate his birthday and let Disney know. When DH called back to change the ressie to something else and change where we celebrate his birthday, they said they were going to put a note about his birthday on EVERY meal. He said, "Please, don't." The CM said, "Sorry, I don't think I can honor your wishes about this."

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My birthday was a blast. I wore my birthday button everyday and at least ten or more cast members would say "Happy Birthday Donna!" At some resturants they were more into it and some were low key,only involving my family. Both ways it was nice. One tip I will give is this - two days in a row I got a birthday button because as soon as the sun screen touched the button the sharpie marker smeared or got on me. On my actually birthday a fairy godmother in training at the bibbitti bobbitti boutique asked to see my button,so I gave it to her. When she gave me back my button it was awesome- she wrote my name really fancy in sharpie and then laid scotch tape over it so it would stay - then she dipped it in pixie dust. ( Your hubby my not want pixie dust - but I would use the tape method.) By the end of your trip he will probably be sick of the Happy Birthday song !!

See, this is so frustrating! Just when I think I've decided where I went want to rent for my 40th bday trip in January-pre-purchase of DVC-then along comes a great trip report like yours and changes my mind!

And I must know: what is in a No Way, Jose?

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If you are asking me - I vote for BEACH CLUB !! And oh my lord ... What is the No Way Jose..... thinking about it gives me the sugar shakes....
It is a huge wine goblet that feels like it has been in a fridge, the glass itself is dripping with peanut butter and hot fudge. It has a huge scoop of chocolate ice cream, a scoop of vanilla, they take real peanut butter and heat it up just enough so they can pour it all over the ice cream. Then they pour the hot fudge, next it covered with whip cream then drizzled with peanut butter and hot fudge morsels....... So to answer the question "What is a No Way Jose?" - Answer = Ten extra pounds on the behind is what it really is

Here is a better picture of it : The No Way Jose ... Another Disney sight to behold .....

Your trip report is wonderful to read and is making me so TIRED!!! It sounds like you are all going at a break-neck pace. I'm happy to hear that you have scheduled a "rest day". I love that you are posting photos -- I have never been to BCV and you are making me want to go ASAP!

We are going to AKV next March, so I have quite a while to wait for my next trip. The beauty of being a DVC member, you know that you will be back there again soon, so there is no pressure to see everything and you can really enjoy your "rest day".

Keep your reports coming! We're all enjoying them!!!

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I am glad you are enjoying the report. We really slowed down this time compared to when we went last August - or I thought we did - And as you are about to read in my next installment - the rest day didn't end up to restful - but at least I didn't drag them to a park

Today we are taking it easy I had decided since Saturday would probably be crazy at any park we would go to that we wouldn't go to a park.
I woke up at about 9:00 got showered and ready. I wake the others so they can start getting ready for our 10:30 adr for Cape May Cafe Buffet Breakfast. While they all began to wake up, I gather up the swimming suits hanging in the bathroom and all the wet towels and head out the door to find out about the laundry room.
It was literally ten feet away from our room, and all machines were empty. 2 washers, 2 dryers. Before coming on this trip I purchased 13 new outfits and two swimsuits for each one of us (crazy I know) - so this will be my only trip to the laundry room. But it was very convenient.

Once everyone is ready we head down to Cape May for our breakfast:

When we are seated the kids are a little disappointed because last year when we came here for breakfast they had a paper table cloth so that the kids could draw on the whole table. This time they were given a coloring sheet of the Imagination Movers. They got over it !

We loved the fact that we could walk right down to this character breakfast. The resturant area itself is smaller than most buffets and makes it very nice for character interaction. We ended up seeing all of the characters at least three times.

They all look so cute in their beach outfits :
Minnie:

Goofy:

Donald:

The breakfast here was okay as far as the food. They had scrambled eggs that seemed very runny (gross), a pre-made ham and cheese omlette, mickey waffles,breakfast potatoes, bacon, and huge sausage links. Plus there was a breakfast pizza and biscuits with gravy. There was also a good assortment of pastries (cinnamon rolls),breads,yogurt,fruit and three cereals (rasin bran,fruit loops and frosted flakes).

After breakfast we gather up our stuff and head out to the bus area to go to downtown disney. I had promised my son we would visit the lego store and he was not going to let this go. We get to the bus and it arrives with in minutes ( I don't ever remember waiting longer than 5 minutes for bus.) We leave the bus stop and head to Typhoon Lagoon first and then our stop at Downtown disney.
We get off the bus and the first place we go in is Goofy's Candy Company. Last year we didn't make it inside so I really wanted to check it out. There were so many treats to choose from, but of course we weren't hungry in the least and if we get something now it will be a melty mess. So we decide we will stop here just as we are leaving dwontown.
Next we head into The Once Upon a Toy Store. I pick out potato head pieces and fill a happy meal type box full. The cost is 20.00 for all the pieces you can fit. I fit a ton, my box barely closed at all but the nice CM at the register shoved on it until she could get one corner barely closed and put it in a bag for me! ( We already had the bodies, so we just get the little pieces.)

Next we make it over to the lego store, the whole reason for coming to Downtown Disney. My son rushes in the store, he has a list. This is actually funny, but I am thinking why didn't we just order this stuff on-line. Because now he is going to beg to open up sets of legos and have pieces everywhere in the room. (We try to avoid this). He gets a ton of lego racers, he is car crazy. I give my 100.00 dollar bill to the lego store and in 10 minutes we are back out in the heat.
My son has completed his mission - and now wants to leave. I tell him to chill out because there is other stuff I want to see. DH looks like he is ready to abandon us
Once we are outside I see the DVC booth set up and remember - "Oh yeah Gib said, if we stop by we can get free fastpasses at his office. I walk over and talk to a couple guys and explain how we bought over the phone and Gib had told us to stop by once we arrived in town. They call over to the DVC office but Gib is out, one of the guys talks to a sales manager that says we can head over anyway and they will hook us up with the passes. The sales people then explain how the boat works to get to the Saratoga Springs Resort - they make it sound really easy.
I then tell my family that I have one more thing for us to accomplish before we can ride the boat. We go into Earl of Sandwich and get drinks. The place is so crowded,standing room only, so we leave. I then tell them that I do not want to leave downtown disney until we have rode the Characters in Flight Balloon. My DS starts to act up, saying he is to hot and he can't walk and looks like he is going to cry. I realize something is going on .... I ask him "What in the world happened to all the energy we had in that lego store?" He then quietly admits to me that he is terrified of the balloon !! I talk to him for a couple minutes and realize he thinks it is going to float off into the sky like the balloons we see at the Albuequerque Balloon Festival I then explain that the balloon is tied up and we just float up and down - no big deal.
We finally get over to the balloon area. The cost is about 56.00 for the four of us. I have 400.00 free dollars on our Disney Reward card so I use this to pay for the ride.

Day 5 - to be cont'dDo we make it through the balloon ride? And will we get fastpasses at DVC tour center - coming up in next installment

Thanks so much for posting the pictures of the laundry facilities. I hope they started posting directions. When I tried to use them a couple years ago, the laundry took over 2 hours and it STILL wasn't dry! But I'd started around 10:00 at night, and by midnite I was tired. Unfortunately, I wasn't on the fourth floor that year. Didn't you love being so conveniently located to the laundry room!

Ah yes, the sweet sweet guilty pleasure of the No Way. My DS17 and I shared THREE of them this past trip in April. We couldn't get enough of these things. But there's no way (sorry) I could ever eat one on my own. Its so fun to share one!

Ah yes, the sweet sweet guilty pleasure of the No Way. My DS17 and I shared THREE of them this past trip in April. We couldn't get enough of these things. But there's no way (sorry) I could ever eat one on my own. Its so fun to share one!

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My DH and both kids can not stand peanut butter... they are weird But rest assured - I could never finish one of these alone.... I bet if I looked around it probably wouldn't be to hard to find someone who loved peanut butter as much as me !!

Thanks so much for posting the pictures of the laundry facilities. I hope they started posting directions. When I tried to use them a couple years ago, the laundry took over 2 hours and it STILL wasn't dry! But I'd started around 10:00 at night, and by midnite I was tired. Unfortunately, I wasn't on the fourth floor that year. Didn't you love being so conveniently located to the laundry room!

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They didn't have any directions that I saw. But I already knew exactly how to use them. I have these machines at the house except they are kenmore. One tip I can give is this : Normally people think the less clothes the quicker to dry, with these machines it is exactly the opposite. There are senors inside and they actually get hotter when they sense the wetness, so you need to always have a big size load. Throwing in 2 small swimsuits will end up in the machine never getting hot enough to dry a thing.

Before we get on the balloon we are given a few safety instructions. It is time to go. Our balloon tour guide was really nice and funny too. We go up 400 feet. It is a little hazy but we still get a good view of the area.

Saratoga Springs:

Here we are 400 feet up

The balloon guide pointed out all the Disney Parks. He said you can only see the very tip of one of the turrets of the Magic Kingdom Castle. He said "We keep submitting requests for them to move that crazy triangle shaped building." ( he was talking about the contemporary) But he said for some reason, Disney was not responding to requests.
Then as we started to descend he told everyone to start screaming like crazy so that the people below waiting to board would be scared !! When we landed he told the people waiting that his ride was better than the Hollywood tower of terror !!
The ride was nice, but obviously it is something that you would only do once, and it was a little easier to spend the 56.00 dollars since it was reward money.
After this we go down the ramp to get the boat to Saratoga Springs DVC sales office. We wait almost 15 minutes in the scorching heat. The boat comes and this is what we see as we look backwards.

We get to Saratoga, we head inside the front door and find the DVC desk inside. We explain to the salesman why we are here and he walks us over to the sales office. ( I don't think we would have ever found it.) When we get inside I tell the lady at the desk why we are here and she checks to see if Gib left notes about us picking up fastpasses. I tell her that I don't think he did, because we had hoped he would be here. I then told her that the guys from downtown disney had called and talked to a sales manager and the manager had said head over, they would take care of us. She tells us to go ahead and enjoy some refreshments while she gets them for us. We are so thirsty, so that lemonade was great. We also have a few cookies and then she returns and explains how the special passes work. I then ask her if there is anyway they can give us a lift back to the boardwalk. She said "Oh the vans are only for people on tour." I said umm... we never had a tour so can we pretend we did and get a lift back to boardwalk ? She says she will check. My DH immediatly says - "See they got your money so now they don't care if you go back into the heat and wait 30 minutes for that boat again." I tell him to hush, she was very nice and she is checking. Well, everything goes great and she says they can take us immediatly. We get into the van and are taken right to the boardwalk. I know this is something they probably are not used to doing, but I was SO happy they did it for us.

We walk through the boardwalk and go to The Big River Brew Works for lunch - although it was already almost 4:00....
I didn't take any pictures but the lunch here was great and relaxing. I did take some pictures of our beautiful place across the water.

After lunch we head back to the Beach Club. We are exhausted.... this was suppose to be relaxing !! What the heck happened Oh well, it is now about 6:30 and we head down to go swimming.
The movie on the beach is Pirates of the Carribean, but the kids don't even want to leave the pool, so we skip it.

We do catch the fireworks of Illuminations from the beach - that was really cool. We swim until about 10:00pm. We go back to the room change into clothes and go down to Beaches n' Cream and enjoy a very late dinner. (They are open until midnight) We are there with the last customers of the night. It was a lot of fun. They played the music really loud and some of the people were singing to beach boys music - very fun !!

Finally, our relax day comes to an end just after midnight. What the heck were we thinking !!

I love your report! I feel for you about your DH with the smoking-my DH tried the same thing while at Disney with much of the same end result although I will say he cut down significantly due to there being so few smoking areas. Your balloon ride looks awesome and is something we hope to try on our next visit.

Thanks so much for posting the picture of the Movies on the Beach showings. I've gotta admit-I know the movies change every month and I hope they change again before I go in October. Last October they showed "Enchanted" one night and I was so thrilled because it's one of my favorite movies. A couple years ago they showed "Nemo" and "Cars". I wouldn't mind if they drag those out again.